How loneliness inspired Daniel Aleman's novel about a Grindr date gone fatally wrong
The Toronto writer discussed I Might Be in Trouble on Bookends with Mattea Roach
Daniel Aleman's latest novel takes the concept of ghosting after a first date quite literally.
In I Might Be in Trouble, David hooks up with a great guy, only to find him dead in his bed the next morning.
David teams up with his literary agent, Stacey, on a mission to find out just what happened the night before and maybe turn the disaster into inspiration for David's next book.
Drawing on his own experiences with online dating and searching for belonging, writing I Might Be in Trouble was a way for Aleman to process his experiences.
"I think of this as my most honest book yet," he said on Bookends with Mattea Roach. "It's a book that I've been so happy, yet scared to share with my friends and my family.
"As I started sharing it with people, I've realized that I'm not as alone as I thought I was."
Aleman is a Toronto author originally from Mexico City. His previous work includes YA novels, Indivisible, which won the 2022 Tomás Rivera Book Award, and Brighter than the Sun.
He discussed the line between personal experience and fiction in his writing and how connection can be found in all kinds of places.
Mattea Roach: How did you balance humour and horror in crafting this story?
Daniel Aleman: From the start, I thought of this as a comedy. I wanted first and foremost to laugh, especially as I thought of certain experiences that I have faced as I entered adulthood.
I also wanted to play with genre. For me, it was important to bring in elements of suspense, a little bit of thriller. There's even romance in this book. So it really is a little bit of everything, but the laughter is what brings it all together.
I want us to be cringing a little sometimes, telling David, "Oh my gosh, please don't do this," but also be firmly on his side and just feel all the emotions as we read.
MR: You mentioned that some of this story was inspired by experiences that you had in younger adulthood. How much of the fictional David comes from you, the real life Daniel?
DA: So much. I would say that with every single book I write, I seek to put pieces of myself in the main character. With this one especially, I wanted to be very intentional about writing a mirror image of myself. We share the same initials, the same profession, a lot of the same challenges. I was 28 years old at the time of writing the first draft of this book, as is David.
The best way I have to process everything is to be honest.- Daniel Aleman
I use my fiction to understand myself better and to understand the world and certain experiences that I have. The best way I have to process everything is to be honest. And what better way to be honest and be authentic than to write a character that is me, except not me?
MR: Your main character, David, thinks that he's killed this man that he's hooked up with. The person that he calls in this moment of crisis is not a friend, not a family member, it's his literary agent Stacey, who immediately rushes to his aid to figure out what they're going to do with the body. What was the inspiration for this dynamic of a young writer [and] his older, seasoned agent?
DA: I wanted to explore an unlikely friendship and the reason is that sometimes we find companionship and comfort in the most unexpected of places. Perhaps David, as a 28-year-old, would expect that he would be surrounded by friends his own age, and suddenly he realizes that he's alone, that his friendships have moved away, that he has broken up with his boyfriend who he's still in love with and the only person remaining in his life is actually a professional connection, his agent, Stacey.
I wanted to explore how he can open up to someone who's not meant to be there as his friend, but who still is willing to be. There's such beauty in that and the unlikelihood that a 60-year-old woman and a 28-year-old gay guy would become this close and share so much of their lives with each other.
MR: There's an interesting dynamic in I Might Be in Trouble where David is feeling a lot of things when Robert, the man he hooked up with the night before, dies. What is David going through emotionally in navigating all of this?
DA: Everything that David goes through in those scenes comes from a very personal place. I was grieving, I don't want to call it a relationship, but a situationship. I met someone on a dating app, much as David does, back in 2019 and this went on for about seven months. He didn't live in Toronto, so it was like a long distance situationship. We travelled back and forth a few times.
When the pandemic hit, I realized that this person was, in fact, engaged and had been lying to me this entire time, and had been making me believe that he wanted a relationship, that he wanted a future with someone just like me. When I learned the truth, I was obviously deeply hurt.
I turned to my writing to try to understand what had happened. All of those emotions just come from such a personal place. You're grieving the person you thought you knew. You're grieving what you thought your relationship could have become and you're also just reeling from the unexpected revelations about this person. So David goes through all of that — and it does come from reality — minus the dead body.
MR: Sometimes, when people have been duped in a romantic relationship or someone turns out to be different than who you thought this person was, there's not only that sense of grief, but also a sense of self-flagellation, of "how could I have been so naive as to think that this situation could have really been as good as it seemed." I'm wondering whether that is something that you were maybe working through in the aftermath of that situationship that you mentioned that didn't pan out.
DA: Oh, absolutely. I felt so stupid. I felt like, "How could I have not seen this before? How could I have trusted someone who told all these lies?" What I've come to understand, especially through the process of working on this book, is that dating and relationships require vulnerability and I can't be sorry for having been vulnerable. I can't be sorry that I chose to trust someone and chose to look at them at face value because that is what's required if you seek a partner.
I can't be sorry for having been vulnerable.- Daniel Aleman
There was definitely a lot of self blame in this whole situation. But I've come to realize that the only person to blame was the person who was trying to deceive and trying to tell lies. This book really has helped me come to terms with all that. It has been almost like therapy.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity. It was produced by Ryan B. Patrick with thanks to Ailey Yamamoto.
